


That Escalated Quickly

by BastardSonOfDay (Diana_Raven)



Series: Bingo Prompts [13]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen, this is probably like my only elain fic i'll ever write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15254787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/BastardSonOfDay
Summary: Elain and Lucien's first and last fight.





	That Escalated Quickly

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Elain Stans or Elucien stans please dont kill me this isn't from a hateful place, it's just their relationship based off of ACoFaS.
> 
>  
> 
> (Which granted, I hate)
> 
> Prompt: Fighting

It doesn’t start as a fight. It starts as a simple disagreement, as these things always do. Then it escalates.

It always escalates.

When Lucien’s parents fought he would hide in his room. When his brothers fought he would hide in the city surrounding the castle. (They would always come looking for him after they’d thrown a few punches, because then they could pin it on him, and to pin the fight on him they would have to make it look good of course, and that always meant pain on his end.) When he and Tamlin fought he would dodge the bursts of magic his friend would put out, thanking the Mother that he was quick enough. When he and Feyre fought, one of them would storm off after things went too far (as they always did) and they wouldn’t speak for a while.

But when he and Elain fought-

Well, that was just the kicker, wasn’t it? They never fought, because to fight they would need to say more than two words to one another.

Like today. Like this time.

It starts as something stupid. Lucien is back to speak to Rhysand and Feyre about the goings on in the Mortal Realms (of which he’s been visiting a lot) and he stops by to steal a glimpse of Elain, like he always does. (He can’t help it.)

She’s in her garden. She’s enjoying herself, planting and weeding. She’s been hard at work (Feyre writes) building it up. She’s proud of it.

She should be, Lucien thinks, it’s beautiful.

She sits back on her heels, just to wipe the sweat from her brow, when she catches a glimpse of him in the doorway.

She catches his eye, and neither look away for a minute. At last, she breaks the gaze, looking back down at her work, only to cut her hand on her equipment. Elain hisses and stands, eyes wide at the large amount of blood pouring from her hand. The wound begins to close up on its own and Elain lets out a heavy breath, as if she had forgotten it could do that. But Lucien is already on his way over to her, to ask if she’s okay.

She says she is and to go away.

He tells her that her morning glories are in the wrong place if she wants them to bloom at night.

She tells him that she knows where the optimal place to put them is, thank you very much, and if he truly wanted to be helpful he would bugger off.

He apologizes (with a bit of spite in his tone), he was just trying to help.

And, as said before, it escalates.

Lucien doesn’t know how it gets to the point where he’s in the garden of the House of Wind screaming his head off while getting his ear bitten off by the woman he’s screaming at, but it does. And Lucien feels like he wants to vomit. He hates arguing, he hates yelling. He hates it all. Especially when he sees Elain’s face contorted in such ways, spewing such angry declarations at him. About how she never wanted to be made like this, and the fact that he’s still here—still trying to talk to her—is proof of just how much his hand was played in the creation of this abomination she is now.

He’s shouting that he didn’t choose this either, and how if he could he’d be dead long before now, but he’s not and that he didn’t make her this way but here she is and she must get used to it. So he still wants to talk to her on occasion, how can she blame him for that! They’re bound together and nothing will change that! He isn’t asking for her heart or her love or even her approval, he just wants them to be able to have a normal conversation without her freezing him out.

She shouts how he should never have come back to the Night Court and he says that he was on his way out as it was and he was just being polite and she roped him into this argument in the first place.

Then Elain says that if he was going as it was, and if this is all her fault anyway, why not just leave? Just leave her here right now and never return, she was sorry for keeping him from his oh-so-important duties or whatever.

Lucien shouts fine, he’ll leave, he’ll never come back. Any more conversation he has with anyone won’t be in the Night Court at all! That way she never has to deign to look on his face ever again! It’s not like he likes seeing her anyway. It’s too painful, and besides, he has other friends now, other people to hold onto. People who treat him like he should be treated.

Fine! Elain bellows at him across the garden. Be that way. Go on! She cries, go on and never come back! He disgusts her! He’d be better off dead.

Fine! Lucien shouts back.

Fine! Elain responds.

_Fine!_

And Lucien storms out.

* * *

Elain doesn’t see him after that. Not for a while. Things are happening, she knows, bad things. Wars brew and people contract illnesses. Wars are waged and people die. Elain still doesn’t see Lucien.

* * *

It’s years later, so very many years. Feyre and Rhysand have children. Nesta is healthy and happy. Amren is happy with Varian, and pregnant. Cassian leads legions as he always had before but is giddy as an uncle. Azriel fights him for the title of ‘the fun uncle’ and still knows everything before everyone else. Elain still works in her garden. (He was right, the morning glories get better coverage a little while over and bloom beautifully in the night, not that she ever tells him that.)

And still, Elain hasn’t see Lucien since that day.

So when Vassa shows up at their door, Elain doesn’t know what to say.

He’s gone. Vassa tells her. The Queen had asked to speak in private, Elain hadn’t seen the point; now she understands why. Last night. Gone. Just like that. Vassa thought Elain should know.

Elain wonders why she didn’t feel it. She’s numb. She sits down, unable to understand why she couldn’t tell that he was dead on her own. She could always feel it up until then, when he was angry, when he was happy, when he was sad. While she hadn’t seen him since that day, that didn’t mean she hadn’t felt him.

So why didn’t she feel him now? Why had he left without a trace?

Why were their last words a fight?

It escalates so fast, Elain thinks, one minute they’re just disagreeing about where to put the morning glories and then next she wishes him death.

And he accepts it.

Fine. He had said to her. _Fine_. As if in agreement, as if he would have been better off dead.

_Fine!_

And just like that, (years, she has come to learn, are shorter when you have almost eternity) he’s gone.

* * *

Sometimes Elain wonders what could have been, had they not fought, had she said something different.

She likes to replay the moments over and over in her head, changing insults to see how the scenario would change, but every time it ends the same way. With the same escalation.

When Elain’s parents fought, she would go to the nursery and hide with her sisters. When Elain’s sisters fought, she would retreat to her pathetic garden. When her sister and her father fought, Elain would stand bashfully in the corners of the room, forbidden to leave until her sister spoke what she had to say.

But none of those fights had ever ended up like this. So why did this one?

Because sometimes, that’s just how things are. Slowly, Elain begins to accept that. Sometimes, that’s all two people are good for, she believes, just fighting.

Even though they only fought once.

Sometimes, once is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> REMINDER THAT YOU CAN STILL SUGGEST PROMPTS FOR THE LAST IN THE SERIES. COMMENT THEM BELOW.


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